GUEST: This is a watercolor that my father had for my entire life.

I grew up with it, and it was always one of my favorites.

I always loved the whimsical, uh, frame.

I knew my father was a huge fan of George Herriman's cartoon strip Krazy Kat.

This is Officer Pupp.

Both my parents were junk collectors, and my mother found this in a thrift store, paid maybe 50 cents or a dollar for it, and then surprised my father with it.

And he was just delighted.

So it was hung in a special place in the house.

I know that it was created in 1933.

I believe George Herriman, the cartoonist, was a member of a gentlemen's club, and they had put on a "spoof" art show.

And I believe George Herriman had awarded himself first prize.

(laughs) So there's a little note there.

It's really faded.

APPRAISER: A little bit about Herriman first.

He was born in 1880 and his parents were a mixed-race couple, Creole, and he never really embraced his heritage.

Always tried to hide his heritage.

When he was ten years old, they moved out to Los Angeles, where he looked for work.

He dabbled in a whole bunch of different cartoons, and then hit on Krazy Kat, which ran from 1913 to 1944.

He had gotten a contract with King Features, who were the ones who had the rights to Krazy Kat.

On the slip, it says, "Uplifters Inanimate Dog Show," dated May 14, 1933.

And Herriman typed in his name there, "first prize."

So he awarded himself the first prize.

What you have in any kind of appraisal on a good cartoon strip, you have to look at a lot of factors.

Characters are real important.

Krazy Kat was a pretty simple strip.

It had three characters.

You had Krazy Kat, Ignatz Mouse, and you had Officer Pupp.

Ignatz's goal in life was to hit Krazy Kat with a brick.

Krazy Kat thought that was a sign of affection, and wanted to get hit with a brick.

And Officer Pupp was there to stop the whole thing from going on.

What Herriman did do, he traveled quite a bit and he wound up going on trips.

He would go quite often to Arizona.

Right here, "Coconino County."

And that you can tell in the influence of the artwork, with the colors, with the kind of beiges and the reds and, you know, the desert scenes.

This is a great example of a watercolor that Herriman did.

He hand-colored some of his strips.

But his specialty pieces were almost always watercolor, like this.

Doesn't have Krazy Kat, it doesn't have Ignatz, which would have been a very, very big plus.

But you do have Officer Pupp, and it's a really great image of him.

The condition on the artwork itself is terrific.

And to me, one of the real big pluses is, this is an original Herriman frame.

And in all the years of doing this, and I've handled a lot of Herriman stuff, I think I've seen a frame, original one that he did, with one piece.

They're not very easy to find, and it adds quite a bit of value to it.

It's just a great specialty piece.

And the fact that it's fresh to the market, it's never been seen in... How many years since your folks got it?

GUEST: My, uh, parents have had it since the 1950s.

APPRAISER: At auction, I would easily estimate this between $25,000 and $35,000.

GUEST: (inhales) Wow.

Yeah.

APPRAISER: Yeah, it's a great piece.

Had Krazy and Ignatz been in it, you could have jumped that up quite a bit.